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A Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGAT) investigation turned up the disturbing fact that 97 percent of a randomly selected sample of audits were conducted without proper prior authorization.

Paul D. Caron, the inspiration behind TaxProfBlog, points to the IG's summary of what it found:

"IRS employees made decisions to survey tax returns without proper approval. From a statistical sample of 311 surveyed tax returns, TIGTA determined that 246 required the Planning and Special Programs function to concur with the group manager’s decision to survey the tax return.

"However, group managers did not follow guidelines and surveyed 238 (97 percent) tax returns without approval from the Planning and Special Programs function.

"Additionally, in 88 instances, TIGTA could not determine why the tax returns were surveyed because justification was not included in the case files or did not support the decisions to survey the tax returns.

"TIGTA projected the IRS could have examined 840 additional tax returns and proposed additional tax assessments totaling $1.7 million over a 5-year period.